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By Meredith Cohn, The Baltimore Sun4:37 p.m. EST, January 8, 2012

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Review shows alcohol companies reach youth online

A beer bottle was lit up like a Christmas tree on one Facebook page and flanked by stuffed animals in another.

Then there were the iPhone apps that allowed drinking enthusiasts to hunt for virtual trophies or monitor theweather through drink prices, and the video on YouTube that featured cartoon characters using spirits to reducestress.

David Jernigan came across these alcohol advertisements during arecent study of social media. And he says that while they may beeffective marketing for legal imbibers, they're also appealing to kids.

The alcohol companies' voluntary limits on print, radio and televisionthat alcohol companies are largely being ignored online, concludedJernigan, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth atthe Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"We tried to get a sense of everything the companies are doing onFacebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and iPhone apps and it'samazing how much they're doing," said Jernigan. "It's far more than Ithink most parents or adults are aware of. It's the wild west without asheriff."

Associations representing alcohol companies say they've developedvoluntary codes for advertising in social media, similar to thosecrafted for traditional media outlets.

"The spirits industry is committed to responsible advertisingregardless of the medium," the Distilled Spirits Council said instatement. "Social networking sites are used primarily by adults,which makes these platforms responsible and appropriate channelsfor spirits marketers."

Jernigan said there's no way to determine how many kids areseeing, or responding to, the alcohol marketing. But considering theirheavy social media use, he concluded, "it's probably a lot."

He said 13- to 20-year-olds make up about 13.6 percent of thepopulation but about 22 percent of Facebook users.

A May study from Consumer Reports found that amounts to about20 million Facebook users under age 21. More than a third wereactually younger than 13 — violating the site's terms — and theiraccounts were largely unsupervised by parents.

They could be among the 6.7 million people who "liked" the 10Facebook pages the center studied or the large number offan-uploaded photos and videos.

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Jernigan said seeing such content can make a lasting impression.He cited 14 studies finding evidence that exposure to ads influenceswhether young people start drinking and how much. He said about4,700 underage youth die from excessive alcohol use each year.

Tighter controls on content, more parental involvement and bettertechnology to limit underage access are needed, he said.

The Distilled Spirits Council said it calls on companies to advertise inany medium only when close to three-quarters of the audience isreasonably expected to be age 21. The group cited Nielsen datafrom August that show about 82 percent of Facebook users, 87percent of Twitter users and 81 percent of YouTube users are atleast 21.

Codes also call for inappropriate user-generated content to beremoved and age-affirming technology be used before directdialogue is allowed with consumers. And as evidence the companiesare not increasing their influence on kids, the council cited newlyreleased federal statistics that show alcohol consumption ratesamong eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders are declining.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the NationalInstitutes of Health, found alcohol use dropped to its lowest pointsince monitoring began in 1975. Though, alcohol is still "the drug ofchoice" among all the age groups, and almost 64 percent of12th-graders reported drinking alcohol in the past year.

A digital marketing consultant to the Distilled Spirits Council said hedidn't believe the sites were deluged with children. Kids on Facebookwith or without their parents' consent were most likely looking toengage with other kids, said Hemanshu Nigam, chief executive ofSSP Blue, an online safety and privacy firm, and the former chiefsecurity officer for MySpace.

And even if they do visit a site with adult content, technology can screen them. Sites like Facebook use informationgathered on users to appropriately target ads. Companies also can use age gates and skim comments and othercontent to find and block underage users.

"There are a bunch of things companies can do to say to kids this isn't for you, and if you don't go away, there arepeople dedicated to stopping you," he said.

Monitoring the companies' efforts is the Federal Trade Commission. Janet Evans, a senior attorney in the Divisionof Advertising Practices, said social media's use is still new and no one is truly sure how much marketing isreaching kids.

According to a 2008 agency study, just over 1 percent of alcohol industry advertising dollars, or about $35.5 millionof the $3 billion spent, went to sponsored Internet sites. Much more went to television, promotions andsponsorships. Evan said dollars go much further online, so companies are likely to ramp up spending in comingyears.

The agency is collecting comments for another study on the market size and reach. Officials plan to issuerecommendations aimed at protecting youth as well as privacy, likely in 2013.

"We'll figure out if there should be a better self-regulatory approach, which is the primary way we addressmarketing to minors," she said. "We really use the bully pulpit on industry."

The agency faces First Amendment issues in trying to regulate speech online, she said. But in some cases, Evanssaid the FTC can use a law aimed at preventing unfair or deceptive ads.

It used the law, for example, to stop alcohol companies from marketing caffeinated drinks and claiming they keptconsumers alert. Evans said a case could be made that marketing to kids is unfair, though the agency is likely tocontinue pursuing voluntary steps.

She says there has been progress in print and online. Before 2003, the alcohol companies were advertising inmedia where only half of the audience was assumed to be aged 21. By 2008, the companies had agreed to raisethe bar to 71.6 percent because the FTC showed that was the percent of the population over the legal drinkingage. (The FTC had asked for a 75 percent adult audience threshold.)

The FTC also told the companies that it was their responsibility to police their own sites.

"It's not perfect but it's better," she said of the effort. "It doesn't mean youth are not seeing ads, but it reduces thelikelihood that the companies are deliberately targeting a youth audience."

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The Center on Digital Democracy, which monitors online marketing and privacy issues, said the FTC could bedoing more. Among other things, the group says the agency should investigate alcohol companies' use oftechniques that influence subconscious responses. It should also investigate the adequacy of age verificationmechanisms and insist a higher percentage of an online advertiser's audience be an adult.

Jeff Chester, the group's executive director, said social media is capable of more heavily influencing behavior thantraditional media because it gives advertisers the ability to engage with whole communities. It also can reachconsumers while they are in stores, clubs or with their friends and get them to market to their peers. It's alsocapable of changing based on how users interact with it, he said.

Chester said alcohol marketers are in the forefront of the move into social media, and there's a window to stop animpending public health crisis among kids.

"I'm not saying stop marketing online but there has to be agreement among industry and advocates about what isappealing to youth," he said. "This the way business is done in the 21st century, but there needs to be safeguards,and what those safeguards should be is at the heart of the battle."

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